First Black Mayor Of Majority White Mass. Town Prepares To Take Office

NEWTON, Mass. — Setti Warren was a toddler out with his mother one day in the 1970s when white teenagers hurled rocks and racial epithets their way, prompting his outraged father to call City Hall.

Almost four decades later, Mr. Warren will be inaugurated next Friday as Newton’s first African-American mayor, taking charge of a city where blacks still make up only 3 percent of the population but where skin color played virtually no role, he said, in his race against a white opponent.

“I’m actually really proud of that,” he said last week, sitting in his empty transition office near the Massachusetts Turnpike. “People were willing to look beyond race in making their decision, and that’s a tribute to Newton and its progressive nature.”